


Introductions

by butthulu



Series: TAZ Gem AU [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, gem au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 21:50:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13820127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butthulu/pseuds/butthulu
Summary: As far as Lucretia knows, hard light is impossible. The idea of beings comprised of hard light is laughable. Barry turns that idea on its head in the span of less than an hour.or:Lucretia meets Barry's girlfriend and her family.





	Introductions

“Lucretia,” Barry intones as he leads her by the hand. “I swear- I _swear to god,_ Lucretia, this isn't- it’s not a goof. I am in no way, shape, or form pranking you. You _have_ to see this- have to see _them_!”  
  
Lucretia rolls her eyes. “I’m telling you, Barry, there’s no human technology yet that can create hard light, let alone create _beings_ that are _comprised_ of it.” Still, there’s no harm in humoring him, she supposes, except for the massive waste of time this will inevitably turn out to be. There’s simply no way what he's claiming is possible. Hard light is, at best, something that's talked about in science _fiction_ , and Lucretia has severe doubts that it could ever be achieved in real life.  
  
Anyways, she's already here; it’s not like Barry can convince her to come along any more than he already has.  
  
They round the bend, along the side of the cliff, and grass fades into sand under their feet as Barry takes Lucretia further away from the town behind them. To break the silence, Lucretia asks, “So, where are we going, exactly?”  
  
Barry startles, like he was deep in thought. “Oh! Uh, they have a house. There's…. five of them, I think- yeah. Five. Biggs- uh, Magnus- and Merle, the twins, and the little guy, I always forget his name but he's ‘bout chest height, you'll know him when you see him. I mean, Merle’s small, too, but. Anyways.” He clears his throat, and then, as they round another corner, he makes a soft sound of recognition, and uses his free hand- the one not holding Lucretia’s- to wave at a seated figure on the beach, reclining in a beach chair under an umbrella.  
  
“Hey! Lup! Or- wait, are they fused? Oh, jeez-”  
  
Lucretia watches as the figure, who, at this distance, she calculates to be easily _ten feet tall,_ holy _shit_ , gets to their feet, and she gets to see four eyes and a mess of hair, before the being turns into light, wobbles, and separates into two completely separate beings, one scowling, and the other positively fucking giddy.  
  
Fucking _what._  
  
“Barry!” The happy one, with the longer hair, jogs over, and once they see Lucretia, they compose themself. “I, uh, see you brought someone. Who’s this? Who’re you?” The being peers at Lucretia, and Lucretia, on reflex, extends a hand.  
  
“I’m Lucretia,” she replies, as the being- Lup?- stares at her hand. Barry leans in and mumbles something to them, and they take Lucretia’s hand and shake it perfunctorily, before dropping it.  
  
“Lup,” they reply. They.... sound sort of feminine, but Lucretia tries not to assume. The other one, the one with the shorter hair and the scowl, crosses their arms in the background. Lucretia glances at them, then back at Lup, and smiles, feeling incredibly awkward. Lup seems content with examining Lucretia and not saying anything, for the time being, until Barry says, maybe a touch too brightly, “Lucretia! This is, uh, Lup is, well, my girlfriend. Lup, this is my friend, Lucretia.”  
  
Lup suddenly snaps their fingers, and grins. “Oh yeah! Heard a lot about you from Barold here. Nice to finally meet you. I was wondering.... Anyways. What’s up?”  
  
Which probably means, “What’s she doing here?”  
  
“I’m here because Barry wanted to introduce me to the group,” Lucretia replies, and Lup nods.  
  
“Cool, cool, alright, then. Well, you know me, of course, and- you’re human, so you probably care about pronouns or whatever, so I’ll tell you those too as we go along. Usually gems just go by she ‘cause the Diamonds do, but we’re too avante-garde for that bullsha.”  
  
Lucretia opens her mouth to ask what the _hell_ she's talking about, with gems and Diamonds(because the enunciation definitely implied a capital D), but Lup bulldozes over her to continue her explanation.  
  
“I use she ‘n’ her, my twin over there, Taako, uses he ‘n’ him. We aren't attached at the gem like other twins might be- hypothetically speaking- but we popped out at the same time and we look the same, so, whatevs. That's him.” She points to the grumpier being, who’s now laid back down on the beach chair. “He’s great, but also he totally bites, so be careful.”  
  
“I’ll bite _you_ ,” Taako calls back. Lup laughs, and moves on, heading towards a house near the end of the beach, by the cliff.  
  
It’s a sizeable house, big enough to probably have several bedrooms, with a wall of windows on the side facing the ocean, and a porch with a tiny, private pier. There’s more beach chairs of varying types scattered on the sand and wood, and a table on the porch, with another umbrella over it. It’s one of the nicer houses Lucretia’s seen, if only because it looks so much like a home, like something that people live in.  
  
“Biggs ‘n’ Merle should be in,” Lup mutters, before striding up the stairs and throwing open the door. “‘Sup, plebs!”  
  
A big being in the center if the floor raises their head, looking up in surprise from what Lucretia assumes to be a nail-painting session with another, smaller being. The big one has brown hair and orangey-brown skin with lightning-shaped markings streaking down their arms and up their neck, from what appears to be a large gemstone set into their bicep. The smaller one, she sees, as they also turn, has mottled green skin, pocked with mossy orange, white, and lighter green splotches, like they’ve got mold growing on them or something. Their beard and hair are white, and she spots a gemstone on their chest, just out of clear view.  
  
“Lup? Where’s Taak- oh, Barry’s with you, nevermind,” says the big one. They get up, and extend a hand practically the size of Lucretia’s head. “Hi, I’m Biggs Jasper, but you can call me Magnus.”  
  
Lucretia shakes his hand, and feels, acutely, that this must be some kind of lucid fever dream.  
  
“He uses he, Merle over there uses he, Cap’n’port uses he, real fuckin’ sausagefest up in this bitch, as you humans say,” Lup drawls.  
  
Lucretia blinks at that, an “I’m sorry??” on the tip of her tongue, but before she can give voice to it, Barry asks, “Where is he, anyways? The captain, I mean. Is he out?”  
  
“Nah, he’s just sleeping. Dunno why he likes it so much, it’s a waste of time in my opinion,” says Lup with a shrug.  
  
“Heh, that’s only ‘cause you project your dreams from your gem when you sleep,” snickers Magnus, and Lup’s cheeks turn blue. She hisses something back at him, but Lucretia doesn’t hear it, because Barry’s tugging her outside, onto the porch, and making her sit down in one of the chairs.  
  
“You okay? You’re looking kind of- you looked like you were about to pass out,” he asks, and Lucretia gives him an incredulous look, before reining herself in and taking a few deep breaths.  
  
“Barry,” she begins, “you’re my friend, you know I love you. So know that it is from the very deepest reaches of my heart when I say, _what the_ ** _fuck_** _._ What are they talking about, gems, and, and Diamonds? Why is Merle’s _skin_ green?! Why do they have gemstones stuck on their bodies?! What the blue hells is going on???” She started gesturing around the beginning of her speech, and now she stops in the middle of a particularly agitated motion and drops her hands into her lap, huffing and looking to Barry for an answer. “Well??"  
  
There’s a moment in which Barry squints at her, like he's trying to decide what to tell her, before he sighs and rests his chin in his hand.  
  
“ _They’re_ the gems,” he says, after a moment. Lucretia blinks, frowns, and opens her mouth, but he interrupts her, holding his hands up. “I know, it’s weird, but they are. That’s their, their centralized consciousness, right? Their whole mind, their soul, is in that gemstone, and the rest, they just project outwards. Hard light, like I told you. They can be hurt, but they just retreat into their gem when that happens, and the body poofs away. Disappears.”  
  
“Doesn’t that leave them even more vulnerable?”  
  
“Well, yeah,” he says, with a shrug. “But these guys have got their teammates to look after them if they poof. They’re fine. As for the Diamonds….” Barry frowns, tapping his fingers on the table. “That’s a harder question to answer. They don't talk about them much. From what I got, though, the Diamonds are like, their dictators, probably? As far as I can tell, they’ve got some sort of Mohs scale based hierarchy that dictates what they do for the rest of their lives, from the moment they’re born- or, well. They pop out of the firmament, as it were, fully formed and ready to work, so they’re not really born, but you get me.”  
  
Lucretia nods. And then, she doesn't do much of anything for a while, just stares out at the ocean and thinks. She thinks for a really long time, and she can tell Barry is watching her face, but he doesn't say anything. Her mind is racing, honestly, with all of the possibilities, and explanations, and theories. The amount of history laying under the surface is like an iceberg that Barry’s only given her the sliver of the tip of, and she can feel the itch, the urge to document and discover and explore, bubbling under her skin, in her fingertips. She wishes she’d brought her journal.  
  
“Do you think,” she says, after another minute, “that I could bring my journal next time?”

**Author's Note:**

> In case it wasn't clear, Taako greatly dislikes Barry, currently.


End file.
